Tech boosts spending on lobbying

Facebook led a class of technology heavyweights — including Apple, eBay and Amazon — that devoted new cash to lobbying Washington regulators in the opening months of 2013.

Facebook by itself spent $2.4 million in the first quarter of the year, according to disclosures that were due to the feds at midnight Monday, as the company tried to ward off strict new online privacy rules and facilitate immigration reform. In the end, it’s a $1 million increase from what the social network spent at the end of 2012.

Story Continued Below

Meanwhile, Apple hit the gas on its Washington work by spending $720,000 in the first quarter. That’s a pittance compared with others, like Google, but still a noteworthy increase for a company that’s long approached the Beltway with reluctance. Amazon and eBay posted similar upticks as they went to war over sales tax legislation.

In some sense, the first-quarter numbers aren’t surprising: It’s typical for companies across industries to spend more to open the year as they cozy up to new members of Congress, changing faces on key committees and a rotating slate of incoming agency leaders.

For tech, though, Washington’s natural, annual evolution coincides with new interest in reforming high-skilled immigration rules, updating old privacy statutes and fixing contested parts of the Tax Code. The flurry of activity is prompting Silicon Valley to seek an increased role shaping a regulatory process tech companies long have avoided.

It’s a reality evident at Facebook, which spent an eye-catching $2.4 million in the first quarter of 2013 — about four times as much as the company committed to Washington this time in 2012.

The new spending continues Facebook’s maturation as a Beltway lobbying giant, though much of the increase might be attributed to dues it must pay to be part of trade associations — still yet another form of influence. The company, however, did not immediately comment for this story. And Facebook’s stronger lobbying commitment doesn’t reflect the political activities of its leader, Mark Zuckerberg, who just helped launch FWD.us, which is focused on immigration reform.

For Apple, it was an interest in taxes — from online sales tax legislation to comprehensive corporate tax reform — that contributed to an increase in its lobbying spending. The $720,000 the company spent in the first quarter of the year dwarfed the $500,000 it shelled out over the same period in 2012. An Apple spokesman was not immediately available to comment for this story.

EBay and Amazon, meanwhile, both increased their lobbying budgets as they continued to battle over the Marketplace Fairness Act. EBay spent $482,000 in part to oppose the bill ,while Amazon shelled out $856,000 to support it, both of which mark increases for the companies since the fourth quarter of 2012.

As Congress also turned to the issue of Internet radio royalties, Pandora devoted an additional $60,000 to lobbying in Washington — and the company’s co-founder, Tim Westergren, previously has told POLITICO the company could spend more as it pushes legislation.

Google still remains Silicon Valley’s lobbying leader, as it spent more than $3 million in the first quarter of 2013 to lobby lawmakers and federal agencies that oversee its work. Over that period, though, Google severed ties with one firm — Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld — which it had retained amid its antitrust review by the Federal Trade Commission.

Other incumbent tech giants — including IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Oracle — also posted modest increases from the final three-month period of 2012.